Dean Picks Targets Among the Red States...

DNC Chairman and Grand Poo-bah Moonbat Howard Dean has publicly announced he plans to actually spend some money on the State party machines of four States that Bush carried last November.

The States in question are Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota and West Virginia. Interesting considering Missouri was once considered a bellwether "toss-up" and West Virginia had been firmly in Democrat hands since...well since there have been Democrats.

Looks to me more like they're trying to stop the bleeding. While North Carolina does have a lot of transplanted Blue Staters, I'd say it's still a tall order to turn that one Blue. And North Dakota? Forget it.

"This is just the beginning," Dean told state Democratic chairs at a meeting of their association in Little Rock, Ark. "We will announce additional investments in the weeks ahead."

The announced investment in the State parties is $465,000, a pretty paltry sum in the grand scheme of things. I find it curious that the number isn't higher. Perhaps it's just dipping the toe in the water and it wouldn't represent a huge loss if the venture fails.

I suppose it makes sense to Dean, though. Spend some money to build up the grass roots organization, so they can better get their message out: that anything Bush supports is bad. And that Republicans "are mean" and "not nice people".

Sounds like a winner to me.

Posted by: Gary at 01:45 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 245 words, total size 2 kb.

Diane Lane Photo of the Week...

Posted by: Gary at 06:20 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 20 words, total size 1 kb.

Late-Night Round-up...

Stories I'd LOVE to comment on but I'm too damn tired. And the F*$%ing Mets have blown another one. So I'm in a foul mood. If I had dog, I'd kick him. (just kidding).

DJ Drummond at Polipundit says it's time to stop trying to play nice with Congressional Democrats and proposes a SIOP (Single Integrated Operational Plan). And I for one whole-heartily agree. The Republican caucus in both the House and the Senate need to stop acting like PUSSIES and start acting like leaders.

Powerline reminds us that anyone who has a GOP Senator representing them needs to pick up the phone or fire up their email and SLAM these buggers with as much support for the "constitutional option" that they can muster. The time is coming...soon.

When I read this post at RedState I couldn't believe the big guns that those opposed to John Bolton as UN Ambassador have assembled. This is going to be a bigger fight than most expected. And the opposition is funded by the LEFTEST of the left. Even more reason to overlook the fact that he looks like Captain Kangaroo. Bolton MUST BE CONFIRMED. Bring it on baby!!! Also, this very well may be the most researched piece of writing I have ever read.

On a lighter note, Stephen Green has posted some beautiful pictures from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

Maybe I wasn't as tired as I thought. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Posted by: Gary at 10:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 240 words, total size 2 kb.

New To The Blogroll...

Under "Right-Thinking Blogs":

• Cao's Blog (a good friend of "And Rightly So")
• Jackson's Junction (lots of good video)

A New "New Englandah":

• Matt Margolis

And I've put this blog under "Humor/Diversions" because frankly it didn't fit under any other category, but it is damn funny.

Description: "Caption This! In which photos of Politics, Current Events, and what-have-you are re-captioned with innuendo and fart jokes." That says it all.

Posted by: Gary at 10:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 73 words, total size 1 kb.

My Pet Moonbat...

Posted by: Gary at 09:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 50 words, total size 1 kb.

Ace of Spades is killing me here...

Just read his "who might be gay" post. I still have tears streaming down my face from laughing so hard. But then it has been a long day. My personal favorite:

Boba Fett

Occupation: Bounty Hunter

Why He Might Be Gay: Wears a cape; carries around a lot of futuristic BDS&M equipment; calls his ship, which is shaped like an iron, the Slave One; collects funky metal sculptures of handsome men; is known to be a "dedicated bachelor."

Why He Might Not Be Gay: If you watch the eyeslits of his helmet, he occasionally looks at Princess Leia's metal bikini on Jabba's pleasure-barge.

But I don't know how to interpret that Is he thinking, "Tight little unit, there," or is he thinking, "She thinks she's all Little Miss Thing, but she ain't"?

It's a hard one to call.

Go read the whole thing, it'll make your day.

Posted by: Gary at 08:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 160 words, total size 1 kb.

Light Blogging Today...

Updated my Norton Antivirus and I've had to keep scanning, deleting, re-scanning through my system to get rid of a bunch of Adware crap. Tenacious little buggers.

NEVER download the "Smiley Central" toolbar. That thing skewers your whole hardrive with spyware. Just make the manual smileys.

:-P

More creative anyway.

Posted by: Gary at 04:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 56 words, total size 1 kb.

Arguments Against ANWR = All Wet.

The Seattle Times has a column today by Bruce Ramsey titled "My Last Word (Yeah Right) On ANWR Oil Drilling". In it, Ramsey takes to task the e-mails he has lately received from some of his readers trying to make the case against the recent Congressional authorization to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

One of them reflects a similar argument that I've heard before. His response really gets to the heart of the matter.

"One response was that Americans may need the oil, but won't get it. "The bulk of this oil will go to China, Korea and Japan," one reader wrote. "Regular U.S. citizens (and taxpayers) get nothing from this." Assume the oil goes to Asia. The conclusion does not follow. From ANWR oil, Americans would get taxes, royalties and jobs. Also we would get some slack in the oil market, because if China buys more oil from Alaska, it buys less from someplace else.

The oil market is global, which means that supply from anywhere benefits consumers everywhere. Demand from anywhere is felt everywhere. Indeed, the most commonly given reason for gas rising above $2 in the United States is increased demand in China.

It's simple economics. Obviously these people have never read Thomas Sowell.

Posted by: Gary at 08:25 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 221 words, total size 2 kb.

An Excellent Example of Why I Love Reading Rachel Lucas...

Verbally bitch-slapping the idiots who whine about the price of gas - as only she can.

Posted by: Gary at 04:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 36 words, total size 1 kb.

"Grocery Brigade" strikes again...

Another group of food-mongers makes the news as Wes Roth links the story: Former Liberal-turned-Conservative Activist and outspoken critic of academic bias, David Horowitz, was hit by a pie while giving a speech at Butler University.

Will this madness never end? I recently warned Conservative speakers to be on guard against these Leftist ruffians. And naturally, as in the past, the little turds ran away like French soldiers.

Horowitz's supporters followed the assailants out of the hall, and confronted them with what a witness called "pushing and shoving." However, the attackers got away.

"There's a wave of violence on college campuses, committed by what I'd call fascists opposing conservatives," Horowitz said. "It's one step from that to injury."

I guess if you can't win on ideas, desperate measures are called for. Oh the humanity!

Posted by: Gary at 03:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 142 words, total size 1 kb.

The Hillary-Meter...

Pollster Scott Rasmussen has a "Hillary-Meter", the results of which are featured on his website. The Meter, which combines recent polling on the NY Senators favorables, including how she fares in the Red States, is designed to gauge her viability in 2008 as to how she is perceived by voters.

Currently, the percentage of voters polled who see her as politically "moderate" has increased from 27% to 34%. 43% perceive her as "liberal".

Also, 32% say they would "definitely vote for" her, while 37% say they would "definitely NOT vote for" her. As of now, she still has a long way to go. Should be interesting to watch, though.

Thanks to: NY Post

Posted by: Gary at 02:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 117 words, total size 1 kb.

UK Election Poll Tracker...

The BBC News has a site that has been tracking the polls for the British Parliamentary Election scheduled for May 5. The tracking poll, which started January 24th, also has a feature that lets you view a listing of the events that may have had an influence on the results of each poll since its inception two and half months ago. Anyone who is remotely interested in how these events unfold will find the site interesting. I'm not familiar with any bias a poll from the BBC would have so take the results for what they are.

I have also added it to the top of the NEWS/INFO SITES section in the right sidebar and will keep it there until after the results of the election.

Posted by: Gary at 12:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 134 words, total size 1 kb.

Real Men are in, Metrosexuals are out...

A new Harris poll shows that a majority of women prefer "manly" men over the well-manicured girlie-men that Hollywood tends to idolize. The results speak volumes about the attempts in the last twenty to thirty years to try to "feminize" men.

"It just shows that there are some things that you can't change and that, while feminism for a long time has been pushing us towards androgyny with little girls with trucks and guys with dolls, women tend to have feministic traits and guys the opposite," says Carrie Lukas, director of policy with the Independent Women's Forum. "If anything, it shows what feminism hasn't been able to accomplish."

Among the findings of the poll:

• 75 percent of women said their ideal man buys his grooming products at a grocery store or drugstore, not a salon
• 72 percent of women said their ideal man spends his free time doing home-improvement projects.
• 41 percent of women said their ideal man spends his time watching sports (one of my personal favorites)
• 47 percent of women said their ideal man spends his money on electronics, compared with 9 percent who answered "designer clothes
• 90 percent of women said they prefer low-maintenance, easygoing guys.

So what's wrong with a guy spending hundreds of dollars getting facials and pedicures and who's favorite store in the mall is Abercrombie & Fitch? F. Carolyn Graglia, author of "Domestic Tranquility, sums it up nicely: they're too wrapped up in themselves to give a woman what she really wants.

Mrs. Graglia sees the "fashionable man" celebrated by pop culture as an emblem of selfishness. Men being more concerned about how they look than how dependable they are, she says, is a sign of the times. "So many men are like that -- so narcissistic, so self-centered. They are really afraid of growing up," she says. "To me, a man who would look down on [being manly] isn't a real man and isn't in touch with the real things in life."

It must be pretty frustrating for a woman when your man spends more time in the bathroom than you do.

Posted by: Gary at 10:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 357 words, total size 2 kb.

More on AL TV

Country Store has a funny post on the Al Gore network "Current".

Posted by: Gary at 09:32 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 20 words, total size 1 kb.

Cool, but Scary...

That is how Lorie Byrd on her Byrddroppings site describes the new Google service - "Google Maps". I concur. Check it out here.

Link courtesy of Sharpes-R-Us

Posted by: Gary at 08:53 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 33 words, total size 1 kb.

Santorum Assures: Frist will go "Nuclear"...

The Hill is reporting that PA Sen. Rick Santorum is insisting to Conservative activists that Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist is committed to exercising a rules change to ensure that President Bush's nominees receive and up or down vote, circumventing the filibuster tactic that Democrats have been using to prevent such a vote.

Santorum met the leaders Tuesday to dispel growing anxiety among conservatives that Frist was wavering over what some Republicans call the "constitutional" or "Byrd" option - a procedural tactic that would disallow judicial filibusters by a ruling of the Senate chair and a ratifying majority vote.

There has been much concern among Conservatives that the Republican Senate Caucus has been getting weak-kneed on pushing the rules change.

A conservative who requested anonymity for fear of angering the leadership said: "When you have conflicting signals at this late a date, it seriously damages our coalition's ability to support the senators in this." The activist said the message from Santorum was clear: "Man battle stations." Santorum said that he told conservative leaders, "We have to win" and "we have to have the votes" to confirm the president's nominees.

In the meantime, many Republicans - including yours truly - is starting to get impatient and concerned that Frist may be possibly missing an window of opportunity that is slowly slipping away.

When will the GOP leadership exercise the courage to act like a majority in the face of the aggressive political war that the Democrats are hell-bent on waging? The showdown may be coming soon.

Republican aides and conservative activists said that the leadership is most likely to trigger the constitutional option to force a confirmation vote on circuit court nominees Priscilla Owen or Janice Rogers Brown.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has placed Owen on the agenda for a committee business meeting this week and scheduled Brown for next week. That means the soonest Republicans would trigger the tactic for Owen would be April 15 and the soonest for Brown would be April 22, a GOP aide said.

Stay tuned.

Posted by: Gary at 07:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 350 words, total size 2 kb.

Red States Rising...

Red State.org looks at population projections made by Polidata, which predicts that after 2010, there will be a net gain of six Electoral Votes for current States that went for Bush in 2004. And of course if this prediction pans out it means really good news for the GOP. The .pdf file of the data is here.

The data suggests that the reapportionment of Congressional seats due to shifting population as recorded by the 2010 Census will take away one Electoral Vote each from the following Blue States: IA, IL, MA, MI, MN, MO and PA and two each from NY and OH. Where will they go? Well, except for one which goes to CA, they go to Red States: TX and FL get three each, with one additional to each of the following: GA, NV, AZ and UT.

The summary of the analysis is:

"Regionally, the Northeast would lose 4 seats, from 101 to 97; the Midwest would lose 7 seats, from 124 to 117; the South would gain 7 seats, from 189 to 196; and the West would gain 4 seats, from 124 to 128 seats. This would result in a loss of 4 seats for the 27 states (inc. DC) East of the Mississippi from 313 to 309 and a gain of 4 seats for the 24 states West of the Mississippi from 225 to 229."

In other words, by the time of the 2012 Presidential election, it would become virtually impossible to hobble together the necessary 271 without garnering a single Southern State. And as the post at RedState points out, the South will have double the EVs of the Northeast.

So it's easy to see DNC Chairman's motivation to tour the American heartland - especially in the South to try and shore up support for Democrats. It's just pretty darn tough to figure out how he'll be able to do it.

Posted by: Gary at 11:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 321 words, total size 2 kb.

Quote of the Day...

"We have got to start laying the groundwork for a national party, for a national message. ... [Republicans] are mean. They are not nice people. They want to run nearly every aspect of your life"

- DNC Chairman Howard Dean (on a radio interview 4/5/05 per National Journal)

Bulldogpundit at Ankle-Biting Pundits has the story.

Hat Tip: Roth Report

Posted by: Gary at 03:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 66 words, total size 1 kb.

Ex-Donkey Blog Endorses Labour Party For May 5 UK Elections

Labour? Huh? Isn't the British Labour Party chiefly made up of left-leaning nanny-Staters? Well, yes. But unlike the American political system, the British don't vote for a candidate so much as a political party. The man (or woman) who becomes PM is chosen by the party hierarchy. So why Labour? Two words: Tony Blair.

It has more to do with what results would benefit the U.S. the most. Unquestionably, voting out Labour (and by extension Blair) from control of Parliament would send a bad message to terrorist insurgents in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. A vote against Blair is - for all intents and purposes - a vote of "no confidence" in the current British Government.

But more importantly, the world is currently woefully short on leaders with integrity. Say what you want about Blair's party or his socialist-leaning ideals, but the man understands the enemy we now face, just as another PM of note was able to identify pre-WWII Nazi Germany for what it was - a fascist State bent on the domination of Europe.

Tony Blair stood up in the face of political unpopularity and put his balls on the table. He may pay a political price at the polls a month from now. But at least he'll be able to sleep at night, knowing he did the right thing. Doing the right thing is almost never the popular thing. It's always easier to appease and dodge and avoid facing the enemy rather than to summon the courage to face it like a man - just look at the French.

Blair has been criticized as a "lap dog" or "poodle" to the Americans (and to President Bush in particular) by his opponents looking to damage his viability. But just like in the past, Blair has been a loyal partner and ally to the U.S. in a conflict that threatens not just these two nations, but all nations that value freedom. Tony Blair recognizes the importance of winning the War on Terror and that refusing to fight it head on will only buy - at best - a delay of the inevitable.

Patrick Ruffini has an analysis of the political landscape in Britain today and notes the rising influence of the Liberal Democrat Party that has been gaining ground over the last few election cycles.

RealClearPolitics has a good .pdf file that gives a lot of detail on how the support is geographically distributed in the current polling here.

And in my honest (and humble) opinion, Tony Blair deserves to remain Prime Minister.

Posted by: Gary at 02:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 657 words, total size 4 kb.

Morning Round-up...

Jayson at Polipundit looks at the popular vote numbers behind the 16 "same sex marriage" bans passed to date (including the one this past Tuesday in Kansas) and shows the political reality facing supporters of gay marriage.

Winds of Change links to pictures of Denzel Washington's recent trip to Iraq in support of U.S. troops, courtesty of Random Probabilities.

And The Hill reports that Democrats have their own internal fights - specifically between Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

“There’s always tension in the House-Senate relationship because the Senate believes that they are more important. Daschle and Gephardt overcame that because of their close relationship,” said a former high-ranking congressional aide.“Over time, hopefully, Pelosi and Reid will develop the same amount of trust,” the aide continued. “If there’s a problem in six months, then it will be a real problem.”

Posted by: Gary at 11:10 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 149 words, total size 1 kb.